Game recognizes game.
Defending World Rally champion Thierry Neuville is impressed with the quality of Eflyn Evans’ start to 2025.
In his words, his rival is “doing great”.
But the elite level in sport is a sea full of sharks, and no driver is ever too happy to see their rival succeed.
So when asked if Evans has been a tougher competitor so far this year, Neuville was just as quick to send a warning shot to the Toyota driver as he was to compliment him.
“He has always been a tough competitor, so he isn’t any tougher than he has been before,” Neuville told DirtFish. “He just has a good run from the start of the season, similar to ours last year to be honest.
“So he has had a very, very good run and we had a bad Monte Carlo so that makes a big difference, even if now we had two good races in a row in terms of points and podiums.
“But yeah, he’s doing great, but you know every good thing has an end.”
Will Evans’ ‘good thing’ end?
To continue Neuville’s comparison to last year, after three rounds he held a six-point lead over Evans. This year, Evans leads Neuville by six times as many points.
That would suggest Evans has a great chance of going all the way, as Neuville did in 2024.
But WRC titles aren’t won based on history. Evans knows “there’s still a big job to come ahead”.
A strong pre-event test for each event has helped Evans this year
However he did lift the lid on one area that may have contributed to him starting the season so strongly.
“There’s not a lot changed, I’ll be honest [but] I think maybe the key, key thing is that I’ve been pretty happy with the car leaving every test more or less so far this year,” Evans told DirtFish.
“And I think that’s been quite key to me feeling comfortable again in the car and being able to find speed naturally rather than having to force it.
“And yeah, things have been working well so far this year, but we know there’s still a big job to come ahead.”
Both drivers will be in action this weekend (albeit non competitively) at Rally Sierra Morena, three weeks before the next WRC round at Rally Islas Canarias.
